Art, Meaning and Purpose

An online article was posted last week at the following website (here) which discusses the earnings which students make after studying different subjects at university. Unsurprisingly perhaps, at the very top of the list are Law degrees followed by those in Management. At the very bottom of the list are Arts degrees.

In general, women who study at university tend to earn significantly more than their counterparts who don't go to university but male graduates from arts degrees are actually likely to earn slightly less than their peers with the same entry qualifications but who decided not to go to university.

Should art students be worried about these reported facts? If they're looking for art school to turn them into money generators then they probably should be worried, but if you were to ask any art student why they're studying, most of them will probably tell you that they're certainly not doing it as a means of becoming rich. In the following short clip, shot in 1972, of the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl he addresses exactly this very point:

"Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be." Goethe

So the point is an ontological one - so much less about money and more about “being” - it has everything to do with the aspirations of people to participate and make sense of the ambiguities of life and it seems fitting therefore that art, meaning and purpose are so clearly opposed to law, management and money.